Yorkshire's oldest capped player
Alec Coxon died peacefully four
days after his 90th birthday, some
four decades after his turbulent
career had ended and less than
24 hours after he had emptied
his glass and bade farewell to his
friends. So, contrary to myth, he
was not indestructible.

Tall, lean and decidedly mean,
he was a splendid fast-medium
bowler, as well as a dogged,
journeyman batsman and reliable
fielder, mostly at slip, and many
sound judges thought he was worth
more than his solitary Test against
the Australians at Lord's in 1948.
He may well have been given
a second chance had umpire
Claud Woolley agreed that he had
trapped Don Bradman plumb lbw
on the back foot with an inswinger
before he had scored. Alec had
already snared Sidney Barnes,
caught by Len Hutton for a duck,
and was convinced the greatest
scalp of all was his.

But it was not to be and he
ended with match figures of 3 for
172 off 63 economical overs and
he was not selected again. That
sole cap made him the third oldest
surviving England player after
Somerset's Norman Mitchell-Innes,
who is 91, and Dennis Brookes, of
Northamptonshire, who was 90 in
October.

Perhaps his irascible nature
weighed against him, though
he was keen to puncture one of
cricket's more enduring legends
- that he once punched Denis
Compton. "It simply didn't
happen," he said. "The truth is
that we had a difference of opinion
and exchanged a few heated words
during a drinks break on the field
in a festival game. Denis was a very
good batsman who made up his
own shots but I can't say I liked
him. He had fancy ideas about his
own importance. He needed to
keep his feet on the ground and I
believe now what I told him that
day, that he'd have been all right if
he'd been born a Yorkshireman.

There has also lingered lively
speculation about why he abruptly
left Yorkshire at the end of 1950
after enjoying his best season
with 131 wickets at an average of
18.60, but he always indignantly
denied the committee sacked him.
The reason, he always insisted,
was because he was passed over for
the MCC party to tour Australia that
winter. Disillusioned, he accepted
an offer to play for Sunderland as
the first £1,000-a-year professional
in the Durham Senior League.

Alexander Coxon - known
widely as Alec - was born in
Huddersfield in 1916, one of
11 children. After stints as a
professional in the Bradford League
with Brighouse and Saltaire (as
well as being a versatile defender
for the former football league side
Bradford Park Avenue), he went
straight into the Yorkshire side
at the age of 29 when first-class
cricket recommenced after the
Second World War. While his hostility and bluntness upset many, he was also hugely
sociable with a lively sense of humour that won many friends; he was a human chameleon capable of warmth and wrath, rudeness and charm, generosity and
outrageousness. Stories inevitably abounded about such a larger-than-life character, some distorted, some fiction but many true, one of which now belongs to cricket's folklore. It happened during a Minor Counties match at a rain-sodden Old Trafford when the Lancashire Seconds batsman Roy Collins was hitting a century off Durham
bowlers, Coxon included, who were having difficulty keeping their feet. Sawdust was called for and, when an inexperienced ground boy arrived with a sack full and asked
where to put it, Alec pointed and ordered: "Right there." The lad did as he was told - and deposited the lot in front of the stumps right on a good length.

The match had to be halted and the players returned to the pavilion while groundstaff shovelled and swept it away. One Durham player Ken Land remembered gleefully
years later: "It was more like a butcher's shop than a cricket pitch. We thought it was hilarious and even the umpires were chuckling." But one man did not see the funny
side; the captain RB `Bill' Proud, a huge man and strict disciplinarian known as the `Durham Ox' - and Alec never played for the county again.

In recent years we spent many Saturdays together watching South Shields CC in the summer and the club's twinned Westoe rugby team in winter. Three days after his
last birthday Alec, a greatgrandfather, lifted his pint glass - he only ever drank beer - and
said: "Here's to my family, my friends and sport which have given me such a wonderful life." He died the next day.
Clive Crickmer, The Wisden Cricketer